Species

Caladenia alata

Etymology

alata: winged

Common Name(s)

None known

Current Conservation Status

2012 - At Risk - Naturally Uncommon

Conservation status of New Zealand indigenous vascular plants, 2012
The conservation status of all known New Zealand vascular plant taxa at the rank of species and below were reassessed in 2012 using the New Zealand Threat Classification System (NZTCS). This report includes a statistical summary and brief notes on changes since 2009 and replaces all previous NZTCS lists for vascular plants. Authors: Peter J. de Lange, Jeremy R. Rolfe, Paul D. Champion, Shannel P. Courtney, Peter B. Heenan, John W. Barkla, Ewen K. Cameron, David A. Norton and Rodney A. Hitchmough. File size: 792KB

Previous Conservation Status

2009 - At Risk - Naturally Uncommon
2004 - Range Restricted

Qualifiers

2012 - SO, Sp
2009 - DP, TO

Authority

Caladenia alata R.Br.

Family

Orchidaceae

Flora Category

Vascular - Native

NVS Species Code

CALCAT

The National Vegetation Survey (NVS) Databank is a physical archive and electronic databank containing records of over 94,000 vegetation survey plots - including data from over 19,000 permanent plots. NVS maintains a standard set of species code abbreviations that correspond to standard scientific plant names from the Ngä Tipu o Aotearoa - New Zealand Plants database.

Distribution

Indigenous. North Island from Te Paki to about Rotorua thence disjunct to the Horowhenua. Exact distribution still unknown it was only recently (1980s) recognised from New Zealand

Habitat

Coastal to lowland (more rarely montane - up to 800 m a.s.l.). Often in gumland scrub or on open clay pans, in skeletal soils on steep rocky ridges, on the margins of peat bogs or within open sinter and rock in and around geothermal vents. More rarely found in the leaf litter under tall manuka (Leptospermum scoparium) dominated scrub or within seral forest. Usually in dry sites and plants are usually withered off and gone by November.

Similar Taxa

Easily recognised by the early flowering habit, small size and solitary flower. The flower is often suffused pale china blue, or pinkish, pale mauve or even red. Sometimes it can be completely white. The tepals are distinctively sharply acute. The labellum offers the main distinguishing characters, the lamina, side-lobes are marked with cerise bars. The labellum calli are in two rows, spheroidal and yellow-topped, while the mid-lobe has a distinctive curled under yellow or orange tip and it usually bears at its base, on either side, a single flattened orange or dark sulphur yellow marginal callus. The column is weakly curved and marked with cerise bars.

Flowering

August - November

Flower Colours

Red / Pink,White

Fruiting

October - January

Propagation Technique

Difficult - should not be removed from the wild

Threats

In New Zealand Caladenia alata is a biologically sparse species usually occurring in diffuse, often widely scattered populations of few to many individuals.

Endemic Taxon

Yes

Endemic Genus

No

Endemic Family

No

Where To Buy

Not commercially available

TAXONOMIC NOTES

Jones et al. (2001) revived the genus Petalochilus R.S.Rogers (erected by Rogers (1924) for what has come to be viewed as a peloric state of Caladenia R.Br. - see Moore & Edgar (1970)) for a distinct clade of mostly New Zealand orchids that had usually been referred to as Caladenia. Subsequently Hopper et al. (2004) showed how the reorganisation of Caladenia by Jones et al. (2001) was unworkable and they recommended a return to Caladenia and the other allied Australian genera that had been recognised previously. Following discussion with S. Hopper and P. Weston (pers. comm., 2011, 2014) the treatment of Hopper et al. (2004) is preferred to that of Jones et al. (2001) and so followed here.

Attribution

Fact Sheet prepared for NZPCN by P.J. de Lange 14 April 2007. Description based on herbarium specimens and subsequently published in de Lange et al. (2007).